I’ve long assumed we got to the point where the surface of the drive was uniform recording material, “tracks” were just the parallel bands the disk made by recording data. There’s difference in the platter material between two tracks, just the gap the heads leave to avoid interference. Conceptually like audio cassette tape: it’s all magnetic, but the audio is stored in separate tracks.
Is that wrong? Is there some physical coating or gap in the recording media between tracks?
If that’s not wrong, wouldn’t always reading/writing the same track across multiple heads force them to stay in alignment?
I’ve long assumed we got to the point where the surface of the drive was uniform recording material, “tracks” were just the parallel bands the disk made by recording data. There’s difference in the platter material between two tracks, just the gap the heads leave to avoid interference. Conceptually like audio cassette tape: it’s all magnetic, but the audio is stored in separate tracks.
Is that wrong? Is there some physical coating or gap in the recording media between tracks?
If that’s not wrong, wouldn’t always reading/writing the same track across multiple heads force them to stay in alignment?